[HFY] No Graves for the Forgotten

Hundreds of years ago, the galaxy was in panic.

The swarm was coming, a gigantic fleet of life destroyers, who consumed countless galaxies for thousands of years were upon them.

They arrived on a world, consumed and exterminated all life, then moved on, systematically eradicating everything and leaving behind barren rocks in the void.

The swarm was nothing short of nightmare fuel, huge masses of SOMETHING, certainly biological, certainly sentient, 100 per motherfucking percent EVIL, who just could take any form they wished, splitting up to create armies of insect like soldiers (Hence their namesake), transform itself into giant organic ships, without the need for oxygen, or any other atmosphere.

Then one day, suddenly it vanished on the fringe of the Milky Way.

Thousands of races cowering in fear sighed a sigh of relief, and many more of worry, because something had stopped the unstoppable. Something out there had stopped a galaxy killing fleet dead in its tracks, and left no sign of it.

“The chancellor has the floor, please be silent” – The galactic council counted thousands of races, and it was rare for them to reach an agreement on anything.

“Dear ambassadors, it has been 100 years today that the swarm vanished. It’s clear at this point that something big has happened."

"It has been clear for years now, but we must know what happened. As chancellor of the council i hereby motion for the creation of a military investigative fleet, numbering no less than 2000 warships to be sent to the last known location of the swarm, to investigate what caused it to stop, and if necessary, stop it shall it still exist.”

5 standard days (100 earth hours)

That’s how long it took the council to finally reach an agreement on whether or not the fleet should even be created.

After no less than 230 threats of declaration of war, embargoes and economic sanctions did the council finally reach a consensus that there was a need for clarity, and if necessary, action.

Each race agreed to send a warship, ranging from the small, agile and stealthy Kir’lonian corvettes to a Hilathy supercarrier bearing no less than 2000 fighters to investigate the vanishing of the swarm.

Such number of ships were a precaution of a still wary galaxy, afraid to awaken a sleeping giant, be it the swarm, or its ender.

After another 100 standard days to assemble the fleet and a working chain of command the destination was set.

System 5-777-293-666, never visited, long range scanners indicate a single star orbited by 8 planets, a proto-planet and an enormous asteroid ring, a real contender for galaxy’s most mineral rich field.

As thousands of hyperspace windows opened in the system, not a single sentient being was left alive to witness it.

The fleet jumped in the orbit of the third planet, the obvious target of the swarm, as it was the only planet with an atmosphere capable of sustaining some form of life.

It was a sight to behold, monolithic masses of the swarm lay dead in orbit, easily kilometers in diameter each, among them, crude satellites. This was a battlefield, and what shocked every sentient being of the fleet, was that the swarm was positively dead.

And below them a planet beared the scars of it. A billion craters littered the surface of the 7 continents, many nuclear.

The surface was dark, no civilization was left. Yet life flourished.

It was a deathworld, and whoever inhabited it had by all accounts saved the galaxy.

After scanning the surface, the fleet determined that ground investigations were in order, and thousands of marines dropped down, enough men to subdue a planet into submission marched down to find only animals and plants.

Cities still stood, in ruins. Great buildings of steel and glass, little houses of mortar and bricks, all invariably bearing the scars of a war.

War machines still stood, behemoths of thick metal and ceramic; primitive, yet advanced weapons on them.

Little creatures, four legged, furry, agile, fled at the sight of the council troops, as every cranny and nook of the planet was investigated.

Within days the history of humanity had echoed in the far corners on the galaxy.

A race, barely lifting itself out of its homeworld’s biosphere stood alone, in the face of doom.

A race of warriors, poets, artists, engineers and genius, who the galaxy will never have the pleasure of meeting looked at death itself square in the face, and said NO.

The swarm arrived like it always did, surrounding a planet, taking out satellites and whatever ships and stations stood there.

Then it descended.

What the swarm didn’t know, was that it was facing a race so determined not to die that there was no surrender, no suicide, no easy pickings.

Humans fought back, hard.

In the fields, away from cities, the swarm absolutely obliterated them, but in their cities, humanity made its last stand.

Records indicate that no human died without fighting, be it with their firearms, clubs, axes, swords and even their bare fists they sold their hide dearly.

For every human skeleton found thousands of swarm warriors were found. On the outskirts of their cities massive walls were erected, and they held for years it seems.

In their fight the humans detonated hundreds of fusion bombs, sacrificing themselves along with everything they held dear to spite the swarm, to harm it, to weaken it, to examine it.

Surviving records found in the depths of a military site codenamed “Area 51” indicate that humanity willingly killed itself, to kill the swarm.

The swarm incorporated and assimilated everything, including humans.

They engineered a virus, so strong, so potent, that not even the swarm could fight it. And they infected themselves with it, and let the swarm consume them.

The swarm died, and humanity died as well, the disease spread like a wildfire, killing the swarm and humanity alike.

An image stands out today in the archives of the council, it is without a stretch of a doubt the most viewed image to ever be recorded:

A human soldier in power armor, rifle in a hand and a swarm warrior’s head in the other, stuck in an eternal fight, instantly glassed and immortalized in the detonation of a prototype weapon that literally turned everything into stone.

On the wall of what appears to be subterranean bunker stood a crude writing, obviously not part of the original design that read:

“There are no graves for the forgotten”

The galaxy as a whole, will not forget Humanity.

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By /u/AsshatVik on /r/HFY